


Angels with Dirty Faces

by Fudgyokra



Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Mob, Angst, Angst and Humor, Drama, Drama & Romance, F/M, Future Fic, Gang Violence, Gangs, Gangsters, Het and Slash, M/M, Pining, Romance, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-11 14:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10467048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fudgyokra/pseuds/Fudgyokra
Summary: Yoshio Ootori and Yuzuru Suoh head rivaling mobs. Their sons, through some twist of fate, abandon the business in pursuit of better lives.





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> This is a modern-day mob AU that has been sitting in my inspiration folder for some time now. TamaKyo is endgame but there’s a bit of TamaHaru involved as well.

Tamaki Suoh was never, under any circumstances, allowed to be himself. It was a fatal commandment from his father, whose line of work mandated that he and his son both be nothing but proper, resigned businessmen in every instance of their jointed life. It was, effectively, the number one rule that controlled Tamaki’s life.

Kyoya wasn’t an idiot; he knew that bit of information. Yuzuru Suoh, the patriarchal head of the Suoh gang, was the Ootori gang’s main rival. Their business, much to Kyoya’s dismay, always entailed his own father and Tamaki’s butting heads until the media began to get suspicious. Once that happened, any public interaction was over until the buzz died down, where the feud would pick right back up where it left off. That was the thing about mobs in their city: they had to be discreet, or face capitalistic doom if the media should (god forbid) wring the neck of their much more _public_ medical business.

The Ootori family owned part of a prestigious medical company and oversaw the status of two local hospitals, as well occupied the board on behalf of these businesses. If word were to get out that Yoshio Ootori and his sons partook in criminal affairs, things would get ugly fast.

As the middle brother, Kyoya was forced into the constraints of being Better Than while at the same time Not As Good As. That is, he couldn’t supersede his elder brother, yet he had to prove that he was worth a damn to his dad. If he couldn’t do that, then disgrace was a definite in his future. As a result, he took his job very, very seriously.

Kyoya now stood at his father’s side, looking across the room at the Suoh boy and his ungracefully-aging dad. In his head, gears whirred.

It was strange that he knew virtually everything about Yoshio, yet nothing useful about Tamaki, which had been the biggest thorn in his side since they started doing business with the Suohs. No matter how often he tried to collect intel, it was as if Tamaki’s records simply ceased to exist after a trip to Kyoto when he was sixteen, leaving the most recent years of his life a blank slate.

What he did know was limited. Name: Suoh, Tamaki. Father: Yuzuru, chairman of a prestigious academy in their area—one that Tamaki and Kyoya had both graduated from only a couple years back. Mother: Anne-Sophie de Grantaine, sickly resident of France with not much else to offer that mattered to Kyoya other than her relationship to Tamaki.

That was all, besides the obvious, of course: male, tall, skinny, blonde, blue-eyed, twenty years old as Kyoya himself was.

Tamaki’s records were barren. It was from that he surmised something that only later in life would his father confirm to him in private. As the rumors went, Tamaki wasn’t exactly the model mob son his dad had in mind, and this was slowly poisoning the Suoh name in the underground communities. If they weren’t careful, this poison would spread to their public lives.

Despite knowing all that could be known about him, Kyoya had never actually _met_ Tamaki until today.

“It’s good to see you again, Mister Ootori,” Yuzuru lied gracefully, extending his hand for a handshake that never came.

“Certainly,” Yoshio lied back, hands still clasped behind his back. He was only a sentence into their latest attempt at reaching a business agreement when Kyoya caught sight of the fabled Suoh son. He stood, respectable and aloof, a meter behind his father and flanked by two men in suits. While Kyoya examined him, he only stared vacantly into the distance.

Whereas Kyoya was prepared for dirty blonde and slate blue like Yuzuru, what he got instead was a young man of remarkable vividness. Though Kyoya wouldn’t (couldn’t) say so, Tamaki was leagues above his father in terms of looks, with golden hair and startlingly blue eyes and a handsome, slender face that matched his handsome, slender body. Though Kyoya had been expecting different, he couldn’t say he was disappointed with the man he was supposed to be learning more about. After all, work got easier when your target was beautiful.

The next thirty seconds were more memorable than the last few years of his life, if he were being honest with himself. He saw Tamaki’s pupils grow as his attention returned to the present, and just like that they were locked in a stare. Kyoya, undaunted, continued observing. Tamaki glanced from the guard on his left to the guard on his right and then, tentatively, gave Kyoya a little wave with his fingers held stiffly at waist level.

Kyoya blinked. He didn’t wave back. He must have looked as startled as he felt by the interaction, because just a moment later Tamaki surprised him again by smiling sweetly at him.

His heart jumped in his throat, but he made himself behave. With measured politeness, Kyoya nodded once in Tamaki’s direction, acknowledging his presence without feeling. He noted that Tamaki looked a little disappointed but ignored the weird feeling this caused in him.

Before he could think too hard about it, the click of a safety being taken off a gun sent every nerve in his body burning. Just a little too late, he reached for his father’s arm.

“You damned dirty spy!” Yoshio cried, swinging his weapon up at a spot behind Yuzuru’s men’s heads. “I knew I couldn’t trust you to be professional, Suoh.”

Thunderous gunfire erupted from each side of the room, prompting Kyoya to finally put his danger training to use. He ducked, prepared to take out the weakest guard and jump to his father’s aid, only to be yanked from the room and into the dimly-lit stairwell outside.

“Get back!” he hissed, swatting aimlessly at his attacker until his eyes focused on the vulnerable-looking eyes of Tamaki Suoh.

He felt like the gunfire in the room behind them had just become background noise. He’d barely uttered a sound before Tamaki jerked him by the arm and rushed down the stairs with Kyoya clumsily tagging along (not that he had much of a choice, it seemed.) After his initial shock he managed to offer a loud curse, followed by, “What the hell are you doing!”

Tamaki didn’t answer and instead led them to the very bottom of the stairwell, where he shoved him through a door and followed closely behind, locking them both in something that Kyoya came to realize was a broom closet.

The building was quiet now, but Kyoya could hear a car violently pull out of the parking lot outside. When the sound faded away, all that was left was their labored breaths, making the world seem a little dimmer and farther away than Kyoya was used to.

It took him a moment to recuperate but the backlash was instantaneous. “You bastard!” he shoved Tamaki against the shelves behind him, making the other man wince. “My father is going to have my head on a plate for desertion! Or better yet, he’ll have _yours_ for kidnapping!”

Tamaki only blinked big, blue eyes at him, and suddenly the fire in him vanished. That was the first of many bad signs. With his anger effectively reduced to minor irritation, he pinched the bridge of his nose and began with a different approach. “Why did you pull me away? That was foolish of you. You don’t know me, you don’t know what my family is capable of, and you don’t…” he trailed off at the way Tamaki worried his lip and left the hanging question open to interpretation.

“Do you really want to die for the sake of this horrible business?” he asked, voice soft.

Without missing a beat, Kyoya replied, “My brothers would have.”

Tamaki was just as quick on the draw. “Then why aren’t your brothers here? Why did your dad choose you?”

Kyoya tried not to read too much into the question, but even if he had there was no real answer to it. Defeated, he gave the only truth he could tell: “I don’t know.”

The silence that occurred between them then was nearly unbearable, but Tamaki saved grace by speaking again a moment later. “I can’t take it anymore. I think we should run away.”

Any second now Kyoya was prepared to wake up. At this point, he wasn’t convinced that he wasn’t dreaming. “What are you talking about?”

Tamaki, looking at him with more earnestness than Kyoya had ever seen directed at him, licked his lips and said, “I mean, you don’t want this kind of life, do you?”

Kyoya swallowed hard but fought to retain his cool composure. “It’s not that simple.”

“It is, though!” Tamaki all but chirped, becoming animated at Kyoya’s reaction. “I’ve faded off the map before and I can do it again.”

_Kyoto_ , Kyoya thought. When all of Tamaki’s records disappeared.

“Mister Suoh, if I may—”

“Call me Tamaki.”

“…Tamaki. What happened in Kyoto? Why did you just vanish like that?” He hadn’t meant to sound so genuinely curious, even if he was.

Tamaki’s expression was neutral, but his voice was sad. “I fell in love with a girl.”

Kyoya was unamused. “That’s all?”

“I told her everything, Kyoya.”

The way he said his name made his skin tingle, a sensation he dutifully ignored so that he could press the other man further on the subject. “About the mob, you mean.” It wasn’t a question, but Tamaki nodded.

“Her dad found out. He had every right to be mad, I suppose. He called the police and I didn’t know what else to do but run. Our whole family had to relocate, and the last I heard of it was that her family was…‘taken care of.’” Kyoya didn’t know how to respond, but the heartbreak in Tamaki’s voice made him wish he did. “I never acted out like that again. I swore to myself I’d never let innocent people suffer again because of me, and that’s why I pulled you out of there.”

After carefully picking his words, Kyoya laid a hand on Tamaki’s shoulder. “It wasn’t your idea to plant to the spy, was it?”

Tamaki shook his head. “But it’s all the same. I stayed with my father and so I’m just as responsible as he is. To this day I still don’t know if that girl and her father were killed or relocated or...what. Listen, I let her down, but I swear I won’t do it again. I want to protect you, Kyoya.”

These words, although well-intentioned, stung. Kyoya retracted his hand and narrowed his eyes. “You don’t even know what I’m like. I could turn around right now and sell you out. I could make you wish you’d never laid a hand on me.”

Tamaki nodded, suspiciously easygoing about the entire interaction. In fact, he even managed a smile. “The worst thing for me wouldn’t be to die.”

It was stupid, he thought, the way his pulse quickened when Tamaki grabbed his hand and led him outside, then pointed with his free hand to a spot somewhere in the distance. “Come with me,” he said, “to a place I promise you we’ll both be safe.”

Kyoya stared out at the burning orange sky and suddenly felt unbearably cold, despite the moderate temperature. This could be it. This could be the life he’d always wished he could have. And yet, it could very well mean the death of everything he’d worked so hard for.

He looked at the other as if he would have the answers to the questions Kyoya couldn’t voice, and even though he knew that was an impossible task, something about Tamaki’s sweet smile made him think he _could_ have all the answers.

Though he felt an unfamiliar emptiness in his chest, a more potent thrill ran through his veins at the thought of escaping the hell his life had become…the hell that it was destined to be even after his father stepped down. He teetered on the edge of these two feelings until a gentle squeeze from Tamaki’s hand tipped him into a decision.

“All right,” he said slowly, “I’m coming with you.”


	2. Two

Walking the streets at night was a difficult task in and of itself, but especially so for them. They had to act natural for the prying eyes of the common folk, yet be stealthy to avoid being caught by those they knew very well were out to get them. The thought of being followed both pained and excited Kyoya. How would his father feel if he knew his own son had deserted him? Maybe then he'd act like he cared.

Kyoya kept his face forward despite the dark, the wind, and his trepidation alike. He felt more criminal slinking through back roads with Tamaki Suoh than he ever had peddling business pitches with his dad, and something about that made him feel strangely empowered. Looking to his left at the other man, he began formulating a strand of questions beginning with the most obvious: "Where are we going?"

Tamaki grinned. "The home of a pair of my friends. They're lovely, if a bit devilish." While Kyoya mulled over what that was supposed to mean, Tamaki kept droning in the background of his thoughts. Something about twins with the words 'sneaky,' and 'wealthy' involved, which Kyoya assumed were related terms.

"So they're smugglers," he said aloud, intonation not indicating that he was asking a question. As a matter of fact, he was surprised that Tamaki answered to the negative.

"Oh, no. They were born with silver spoons in their mouths, so to speak." Tamaki smiled prettily, something that seemed out of place in their dismal surroundings. "They just like to pull pranks. It's kind of a ploy for attention, poor things."

"Neglected," Kyoya ventured, and this time Tamaki confirmed.

"Their parents are very busy people," he said sadly. "Last I heard they were in Italy on a business trip."

"It's fortunate that they don't involve their children."

Tamaki looked confused for a second, then made a loud exclamation that had Kyoya nervously checking over his shoulder. "Oh, no, no—it isn't like that with them," he clarified, putting a hand on the other's arm to direct him into the street they were supposed to turn on. "They're just companions from high school. No fishy business."

"I see."

"They kind of owe me a favor, so they're going to offer us sanctuary for a little while."

"You presume?"

"I _know_!" Tamaki chirped, reaching down for Kyoya's hand again and pulling him toward a looming mansion shingled in elegant, deep purple. Not exactly the most nondescript location to be hiding in, Kyoya mused.

Tamaki gracefully lifted a hand and pressed the doorbell with his index finger.

The two of them waited outside in silence. Just when Tamaki opened his mouth the door opened, turning whatever he was about to say into a greeting.

For the first time, Kyoya laid eyes on his so-called saviors. "Teenagers?" he asked dubiously. The redheaded twins that stood before him were two, maybe three years younger than he was—not exactly the most outstanding choices for the hosts of a haven for runaway mobsters.

The brothers rolled their eyes in languid, unamused unison. "Hi Tamaki," the first one said.

"Who's the new guy?" the second asked.

"He's cute," the first said.

"Kinda grumpy-lookin', though," said the second.

Tamaki pushed right past them and walked into their house like he owned it. "He's a friend. We need a place to stay for a while, if you two don't mind terribly."

The twins exchanged a look, then cast their eyes on Kyoya. "Are you in the mob, too?" the first asked flatly.

The second twin smacked his brother on the shoulder. "Hikaru!"

"C'mon Kaoru, it's like midnight. No one's gonna be out wandering the streets and eavesdropping on us."

The first twin, Kaoru, sighed through his nose and regarded Kyoya again. "Come in. You're welcome to stay for as long as you want."

"More like as long as Tamaki wants," Hikaru said. Kaoru cracked up at this, which sent his brother into a similar fit of laughter that went on until, finally, Kyoya took Tamaki's lead and simply pushed his way between them.

"I appreciate your hospitality," he said. "I have nowhere else to go."

Hikaru and Kaoru sobered up and walked, side by side, into the living room to sit down on their quite impressively expansive sofa. "What happened?" they asked.

"I rescued him from his father," Tamaki answered matter-of-factly.

Kyoya narrowed his eyes and pushed his glasses up. "I don't know that I'd call it a rescue."

Tamaki pouted at him. "Let me finish my story."

While Kyoya was perfectly content to let him do so, the twins took that as their opportunity for exposition. "Ya might as well get used to that attitude," Hikaru began, "Tamaki is a drama queen."

"I am not!" Tamaki interrupted.

Ignoring him, Kaoru continued with, "He's always the hero of the story, even if he didn't do anything."

Kyoya wasn't particularly in the mood to crack a smile, but the thought did seem very befitting of Tamaki and was oddly humorous to him.

"And he's pretty good at not doing anything," Hikaru said.

"Or way too much," Kaoru added.

Tamaki did his best to look pitiful. "I thought you guys were my friends."

"We are, stupid," they said in tandem.

"You don't act like it!"

The twins dissolved into laughter, which is when Kyoya finally allowed himself to smile. It didn't go unnoticed. Amid his tantrum, Tamaki glanced at him and winked, suggesting to him that this was all in good fun. He wondered what it was like to have friends like this.

Kaoru stood and put a hand on Kyoya's elbow. "Come on, I'll show you where everything is."

Graciously, Kyoya allowed himself to be led through the hall, past bathrooms, ballrooms, and bedrooms until they stopped at a door closer to the back of the house. "This is our room," he said, gesturing to the door. "If you need us, there's an intercom system. Or you can just stop by." He grinned and held up a finger. "But you know, knock first. You don't wanna be peeking in on stuff you shouldn't be."

Kyoya lifted one corner of his mouth more as a cordial smile than a genuine one. He'd known the twins less than an hour, and he already felt that it was a little strange not to see them acting as one unit. "Thank you for your kindness," he said, extending his hand toward the other man, "mister…"

"Hitachiin," Kaoru said, tilting his head to the side a fraction of an inch and ignoring the outstretched hand. "What's your name? You know, since Tamaki never bothered to introduce you."

"Kyoya. It's nice to make your acquaintance." He let his hand fall back to his side.

"Ootori?"

Kyoya pursed his lips and didn't look him in the eye. "The very same."

"Oh, man," Kaoru said with a whistle, "whatever's going on has gotta be rough if you're willing to be seen with Tamaki."

"I'm not exactly willing," Kyoya said, prompting a wide grin to blossom on Kaoru's face.

"You're funny," the man in question said, turning to head back the way they'd come. "I wouldn't be either, if I were you." It was hard to determine whether this was a joke. Silently, Kyoya followed him. "There's a bedroom upstairs that Tamaki usually stays in when he visits. If you want to take the one next to his you can. That's our parents', but they're never home so the sheets are new."

"What do your mother and father do for a living?" Kyoya asked, paying more attention to the paintings on the walls than anything else.

"Mom has a fashion business. Dad's an accountant. They're pretty busy people."

"So I've heard."

Kaoru shrugged and kept walking. "Hikaru and I have each other."

Kyoya again found himself wondering what it was like to be that close to someone. "My family's not particularly close, either. My sister is the closest friend I have."

"Tamaki will change that," Kaoru said, startling him.

"Pardon?"

"Tamaki's the best friend a guy could ask for." Kaoru glanced over his shoulder at him and smiled less impishly than before. "Even though he's an idiot."

Kyoya said nothing.

When they made it back to the living room, Hikaru and Tamaki were shoulder to shoulder, each of them staring down at something on Hikaru's cell phone. Whatever it was, it didn't look good, if their expressions were any indication.

"Kyoya," Tamaki said somberly, "They're looking for you."

"What about you?" he asked.

Tamaki ignored the question. "You knew they'd be coming for you though, I bet."

Kyoya nodded. Tamaki stepped away from Hikaru and rejoined Kyoya's side, draping an arm around his shoulders exuberantly as if he were suddenly no longer concerned with the news he'd just seen. "It's okay, though. You're perfectly safe here with me."

"Us," the twins corrected, rolling their eyes in unison again. No matter what they did, they always seemed to be eerily synced in their movements.

"Like I told you," Hikaru said, "you get used to the hero syndrome."

"I think it's called narcissism," Kaoru offered innocently, making the two of them snicker behind their palms.

Tamaki glared daggers at them for all of three seconds, then returned to his usual sunny self. "You get used to their foolishness as well."

"Foolishness?" Kaoru asked in mock offense.

Beside him, Hikaru scoffed and held the back of his hand up to his forehead. "Who, us? Foolish?"

Despite the situation, Kyoya felt a sense of comfort in the company of these three, strange as they may be. "Thank you again for all of this," Kyoya started, eyes flickering toward the staircase. "If you don't mind, I've had a very long day…"

"Oh! Right," Tamaki said, taking his hand again. Kyoya wasn't sure why the man was so touchy, but it was already becoming too commonplace for him to mention it. "Goodnight, you two!" he said to the twins.

"Night, loser," they replied, each of them saluting.

Kyoya raised an eyebrow and Tamaki grumbled something under his breath before the two began their ascent. Tamaki opened the door to one of the mansion's many bedrooms and gestured inside with a flourish. "This is my room. I stay here quite a bit."

Kyoya hummed in acknowledgement and watched as Tamaki began fussing with a vase of new roses on the nightstand. "Quite a bit" might have been an understatement, he thought.

"I guess you're taking the room next door, huh?" Tamaki asked, surprising Kyoya again by crossing the room lithely and making himself comfortable in Kyoya's personal space. "Unless you want to sleep in here with me."

Kyoya smiled. "I don't think so," he answered gently.

"It was worth a shot," Tamaki said, punching him playfully in the shoulder. "Good night, Kyoya."

"Good night, Tamaki." Kyoya watched the door closed and stood there for a moment in thought. Slowly, he shuffled into his designated room, a strikingly large, carpeted one with a humongous television hanging on the wall opposite the bed. It was well decorated, with fake plants and mirrors and statues, and the bed itself looked like something out of a magazine. Kyoya was wealthy, sure, but his parents' decorative sensibilities were not quite as glamourous as the Hitachiin family's.

Tentatively, he approached the yellow futon that sat beneath a large, French-style window and sat down. With only the sound of his own breathing to accompany himself, he withdrew his phone and pried the back open to look at the blinking light inside.

He plucked it out, looking at it disdainfully. _Bugged_ , o _f course._ Leave it to his father not to trust him after all he had done for him. He sighed through his nose and bit down on the tracker until it cracked. Once the little red light died, he slid the window open and looked out into the night.

Without much ceremony, he cocked his arm back and threw it as far as he could, letting it fall somewhere in the sprawling expanse of trees below.


	3. Three

His first day in the Hitachiin mansion started off as a slow one.

Some ungodly combination of feverish nightmares and unfiltered sunlight woke Kyoya up at seven in the morning, something he never did if he wasn't forced to. Still, he supposed going back to sleep wasn't an option with the tail end of an anxious dream stuck in his mind, so he resigned himself to being awake and shuffled drowsily into the attached bathroom.

One hot shower later and there was a knock on the bedroom door, requesting his permission to enter. Even though he wasn't quite up to socializing at that exact moment, he opened it out of courtesy. On the other side, jubilant as always, stood Tamaki, bearing a handful of wildflowers. "Good morning!" he greeted, offering the bouquet to Kyoya. "The twins have a huge patch of these in the backyard, so I decided to bring them up for you!"

Kyoya, more than a little confused, raised an eyebrow. "Ah, thanks, Tamaki. I don't particularly need them..."

Tamaki rolled his eyes good-naturedly and stepped into the room to set the bundle on the wide Cherrywood dresser occupying the space beneath the television. "I usually decorate my room with roses but since we can't exactly be out in public, I figured these will do to make yours feel more cheerful."

"That's very nice of you," Kyoya said without emotion, focused more on leaving to scout for food than anything the other was saying.

"I can get you a vase," Tamaki continued as he followed Kyoya down the hall. "I know where Hikaru and Kaoru keep them. They have plenty since their mother likes flowers too." Without taking a breath, the story went onward. "She's a wonderful woman, even though she works so much. She might not have done the greatest job as a mother, but she did what she could, you know? She was almost like a mother to me sometimes, too."

"That's great," Kyoya said, his plans to rummage through the fridge halted when he noticed that there was already quite a spread laid out on the dining room table.

When Tamaki caught sight of his expression, his face lit up. "It's nice, isn't it? They have a housekeep that comes in on weekdays to cook and clean for them. They don't have much time to do it themselves, between school and, well, goofing off." Tamaki laughed as if this were particularly funny.

"That does make sense with their parents often out of the picture," Kyoya mused. "But shouldn't they already know by now how to cook for themselves?"

"I suppose. It's not like I can cook, either."

Kyoya furrowed his eyebrows. "You can't cook?"

"You _can_?" Tamaki asked, like it was something foreign to him.

Kyoya nodded, and in a space of seconds he saw a lightbulb go off in the other's head. Before he even said it, Kyoya knew exactly what Tamaki was going to ask.

"Can you teach me? Cooking always did look like fun! That's something we can do without leaving the house, too."

_When did my life become the cooking channel?_ Kyoya wondered, trying to backpedal his way out of the situation. Since he couldn't think of a solution in the presence of the pitiful puppy eyes Tamaki was giving him, he grudgingly assented.

"What should we make?" Tamaki asked, already pawing his way through cabinets in the kitchen. Kyoya looked at the breakfast that was already on the table with a withering expression but joined the other's side nonetheless.

"Something simple. How about pancakes?" His stomach growled.

"I do like pancakes," Tamaki commented, having already retrieved a mixing bowl and a suspiciously-placed bag of marshmallows. Kyoya didn't want to know why they came from the same cabinet.

While Tamaki dawdled, Kyoya collected the necessary ingredients and arranged them on the island counter in the center of the room. Within minutes the ball was rolling, and as messy as it somehow became, Tamaki seemed to be doing all right. He was enjoying himself and Kyoya was one step closer to getting something to eat, so the way he saw it, it was a success all around.

"I don't know how to flip them," Tamaki said as his first attempt failed miserably. Kyoya smiled and took the spatula out of his hands, only to have it snatched back and the handle smooshed into his cheek. "No, I want to do it. You are the teacher; I am the student." Tamaki smiled brightly and batted his eyes in a way that was rather hard to disagree with.

"Okay," Kyoya said, pushing the spatula out of his face. "But you have to do it like this."

He stepped up behind Tamaki and wrapped his fingers around his wrist to guide him. Just when attempt number two looked like it was going to work, Kyoya took his hand away, only for Tamaki to flip it out of the pan and onto the floor behind them with practiced clumsiness. " _Oops_ ," he said, turning to Kyoya. "It looks like I still need your help."

Kyoya's growling stomach suddenly seemed so unimportant it was like something from a past life. His main concern now was that Tamaki was… _flirting_ with him. Kyoya was by no means an expert at these sorts of things, but Tamaki wasn't exactly being coy about it, so it wasn't as though he could just pretend he hadn't noticed.

After a brief internal battle, Kyoya licked his lips and rolled up his sleeves. He would play along, he supposed. "You can't jerk your arm, idiot," he said flatly, watching Tamaki's smile transform into something infinitely more impish in nature. He suddenly looked like he could be a blond-haired, blue-eyed Hitachiin.

"Sounds simple enough."

"You would think," Kyoya said. He'd meant it as a joke, but he wasn't sure Tamaki got his exact brand of humor. It took a few seconds for it to reach him, but recognition did eventually grace the man's features.

"Sorry Kyoya, I just can't help it! I told you I've never cooked before."

"That's obvious."

" _That_ is rude." Tamaki smacked him on the arm with the spatula and turned to face the stove again. "Now help me. Please," he tacked on daintily, cocking his hip in a manner that Kyoya was almost afraid to call coquettish.

"All right," he began, stepping directly behind him again. "You do it like this."

/

They were absorbed in a dramatic movie when the twins returned from school.

By the time the front door opened, Tamaki was twisted around in his seat to greet them with an enthusiastic, "Hello gentlemen."

The twins each gave a small wave.

"I don't think your housekeeper likes us very much," Tamaki continued, oblivious to the dour expressions his housemates wore. Kyoya, on the other hand, monitored them curiously. "She had to clean up the mess we made with pancakes this morning…it was a pretty big one. Dough was everywhere!"

Kaoru offered a fake smile while Hikaru continued to stew in his negativity, and finally Tamaki had to ask what was wrong.

"It's probably nothing you don't already know," Kaoru said, rubbing the back of his neck.

"You guys are missing persons," Hikaru said, almost angrily. "Listen Tamaki, we're friends and all, but I don't want anyone coming at us for harboring fugitives."

Kaoru elbowed his brother in the side and maintained his placid smile. "It's not as bad as it sounds. But there were some…words exchanged. Between your guys' families, I mean."

Hikaru sighed through his nose and dropped his backpack by the front door. He pulled Kaoru's off as well, which the latter didn't seem to be affected by as he continued to explain. "Mister Ootori accused Mister Suoh of having something to do with it."

Kyoya let that sink in, ignoring the worried look Tamaki gave him. "That's foolish of him," he said, pushing his glasses up. "He shouldn't let his private feuds infiltrate his public life. People are going to start asking why he blames Suoh. He should know better than that."

"You can't blame _him_ , he's just worried about you," Tamaki said.

"He's worried about the business. Not me." The movie suddenly seemed a little less interesting now. "Excuse me for a while. I should be keeping up with everything they say. It's very important, after all."

When he left for his room, Tamaki did not try to follow him as he'd expected. He was almost thankful for this, because the last thing he needed was pity. He was too prideful for pity, but since Tamaki thought with his heart before his head he was bound to get plenty of it. Still, the other half of him was getting much, much too attached to Tamaki's company.

He shut the bedroom door behind him and took out his phone. It was a full minute before he did anything but hold it, but once he turned it on he found himself hovering over the bright red missed calls notification.

He could call his father right now. He could pretend he really had been kidnapped and go back to a normal life. As normal as his life got, anyway. The headlines would come from everywhere; they might even bring in more business. His father might forgive him for letting this happen.

His finger remained poised above the notification. He _could_ do it. He could turn his geotag on and let Yoshio "accidentally" find him there. It would be easy; he would pretend to sneak away and let his father think whatever he liked about Tamaki Suoh.

Of course, Kyoya would do no such thing. For one, he was done with his dad's dirty deals and cheap tricks. For another, he might have very well found the best friend Kaoru had promised him.

He sighed and tossed his phone onto the bed.

Almost as if on cue there was a knock at the door, which he answered with a tactful amount of stalling. To his surprise, he found Kaoru on the other side. Kaoru, sans his brother.

"Hey Kyoya," the boy said, feigning disinterest in a way that Kyoya might have taken as real if he hadn't been so practiced in the art of telling these things. "So you taught Tamaki to cook, huh?"

Kyoya hummed. "I wouldn't call what he did 'cooking,' exactly, but yes, I suppose that's what happened."

Kaoru laughed once. "That's Tamaki for you. He can't do anything right but flirt his way through life."

There was a vicious stinging feeling in Kyoya's chest. "That's interesting."

Kaoru seemed to have caught on to the tone, so he backpedaled. "Woah, not in a weird way or anything."

"Just in a 'making girls in Kyoto he just met fall in love with him' kind of way."

To Kaoru's credit, he either faked shock remarkably well or genuinely felt it. Kyoya couldn't tell this time. "He told you about Haruhi?"

_Haruhi_. "He did."

Kaoru had a weird look on his face. "He trusts you more than he trusts his own mother, then. They don't talk much anymore, but he always makes a point to mention that he's never met anyone he liked that way. I don't know why."

Kyoya, done with his introspection and perfectly content to return to his dull, pointless movie now, shrugged passively. "Some things you tell friends that you wouldn't dare tell your parents." He walked out and Kaoru followed.

"You're right about that," he said with a snort.

"Of course I am," Kyoya replied evenly. "Trust me when I say that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to keeping secrets from family."

"Nasty business," Kaoru said.

"You're right," Kyoya agreed. "Is that movie still on?"


	4. Four

Days came and went after that without incident, something for which Kyoya was thankful. Every night he laid on the futon, staring longingly at the bed and not daring to go near it out of some strange fear of comfort. He could hardly sleep thinking about his dad and what he was doing without him. He didn't know which was worse: the thought that his father was out looking for him, or the consideration that he might not have cared at all.

It was a full three weeks before things got ugly.

Kyoya awoke from his afternoon nap as he had each day before: stiff and still tired. Anxiety was a powerful tool, and it was beginning to take over his life.

He stretched, wincing at the cracks his bones gave in response, then reached down to pick his clothes up only to find that they weren't there. Since he wasn't about to leave the room in just a tank top and boxers, he resigned himself to the bathroom to try his best to look presentable again. It was easier now that the twins had found the time to buy him some necessary toiletries, but it was still never quite comfortable getting ready in someone else's house.

When he headed into the walled-off area that contained the toilet and shower, he noticed that his dress shirt and slacks were there, neatly folded atop the fluffy toilet seat cover. He picked the shirt up and, with a curious sniff, confirmed his suspicions that they had been washed. He sighed and got dressed.

Downstairs he found Tamaki in the kitchen, humming over a teapot on the stove. "Good morning!" he exclaimed, making Kyoya's head pound.

He made a noncommittal noise and sat at the island counter. "Tamaki."

"Yes?"

"Why were you in my room?"

"Oh! I looked up a video on how to do laundry and cleaned our clothes for us. Isn't that neat?"

Again, a noncommittal hum, followed by, "Where are Hikaru and Kaoru? Today is Saturday."

"Out," Tamaki answered swiftly, then moved back to the previous subject. "I've never done stuff like that for myself before. It makes you feel pretty grown up."

"You've been grown for a long time, Tamaki," Kyoya pointed out.

Tamaki shrugged. "Hey, why don't you sleep in the bed?"

In his state of sleepless anxiety, that wasn't a question Kyoya wanted to dwell on. "I like the futon."

After clicking the stovetop off and moving the pot off the eye, Tamaki turned to face him, waving the teacup in his hand around as he gestured. "It can't be nicer than the bed."

"It's fine," Kyoya said curtly, looking up the local news on his phone as he did every morning. The bad blood between their families was still flowing strong. No surprise there.

"I just think it's a little strange," Tamaki kept on, "I mean, no one has used the bed recently. The sheets are clean if you're worried about that."

"I'm not," Kyoya replied, his patience wearing thinner by the second. "Forget it, all right?"

"I just want you to be comfortable here, since we're here for a while. It's like our home now, you know."

Abruptly, Kyoya dropped his phone on the countertop with a clack and sucked in a breath. " _Please_ shut up."

Tamaki looked taken aback by the aggression. Slowly, he turned back around and poured himself a cup of tea. "I didn't mean it like that," he said after a moment. "I know this isn't _home_ home. But…isn't it better?"

"I don't know," Kyoya snapped, irritated by the way the truth sounded. "What I do know is that I could be there right now and not have all this damn trouble following me around."

"It's not that bad when you—" Tamaki insisted, only to be cut off.

"It very much _is_ 'that bad,' Tamaki. Our families are essentially at war now because they each think the other had something to do with our disappearances. If you think destroying my reputation and estranging me from my father was a heroic deed, you're sorely mistaken."

"I didn't estrange you," Tamaki said defensively, furrowing his brows. "You came with me."

"What would I have said if I had gone back? 'Sorry dad, while you were being shot I was being kidnapped by an idiot.'" He fought to keep his tone even. Tamaki didn't quite have the same idea.

"You could have stopped me at any time! Don't act like you couldn't!"

"You might have killed me. I didn't know."

"I told you, I wanted to help you!"

"No, you wanted to make up for what you did to Haruhi," Kyoya all but snarled. "But you can't bring her back by fucking up _my_ life."

When Tamaki dropped his cup onto the tile with a crash, Kyoya knew he'd said the wrong thing. The anger in him dissipated, leaving behind an aching sense of shame.

Tamaki made his way to the dining table and sat down, putting his head in his hands. "You're right," he said softly. He ran a hand through his hair. "You remind me of her so much, sometimes. The way you act, the way you hold yourself, your confidence with your emotions…"

Kyoya looked over at the man until the sight of him looking so distraught made his chest burn. With his gaze trained on the broken pile of what was once a bright, colorful ceramic dish, he asked, "Tell me, am I some sort of replacement for her?"

He hadn't anticipated the way Tamaki's head snapped up so that he could look at him, eyes wide and lips parted. "Kyoya, I never—" his voice seemed to fail him at this point.

In the tense silence preceding what was going to be Kyoya's regretful apology, the sound of shattering glass made both of them shoot to their feet.

"The parlor window," Tamaki breathed.

"It's my father," Kyoya said with certainty, keeping his voice low.

Yoshio had finally found them.

Tamaki nodded frantically. He looked like a mess, hands trembling at his sides and his eyes wild. "I know. It's all my fault. I let this—I made this happen. I shouldn't have—"

The three men that barreled into the kitchen were instantly recognizable to Kyoya: his father's bodyguards from the office. Not good. One of them yanked Tamaki by the arm like a rag doll and shoved him forward against the counter with a gun pressed into his back.

Had it not been for a voice in the doorway, Kyoya might have made the mistake of fighting back. "Stop," the disembodied voice commanded.

Kyoya braced himself. "Father."

"Kyoya, my son. I'm glad to have found you. I'm sorry for the violence—it wasn't at all necessary. I was worried sick about you and I thought…if someone in here were keeping you hostage…" He shook his head. "I see now that you're perfectly capable of moving on your own. I suppose that means you came here on purpose."

"Father," he repeated, "listen to me."

"It's all right. It's time to come home. Gentlemen, that will be all."

The guards collected themselves back into their triad and exited the room like trained dogs, leaving Tamaki against the counter with buckling legs and a bruise blossoming on his forearm.

Kyoya looked back at him. "Are you all right?" When Tamaki nodded, he turned to face Yoshio again. "It also wasn't necessary for you to bring a brigade."

"You've been missing for weeks. Anything could have happened," Yoshio said flippantly, as if that excused the entire situation. "I will arrange for the window to be fixed. I can also offer compensation for injuring you, young Mister Suoh."

Tamaki merely frowned at the counter and rubbed his arm.

"Kyoya," Yoshio said, more sternly now, "we have to leave immediately. The press won't leave the company alone and I need you to explain what you've done. For your sake and mine I hope they will accept that it was some childish tantrum. You only have to apologize and everything should be fine."

"I don't want to apologize," Kyoya said, trying his best not to choke on his words in the face of his father's commanding presence.

"We wouldn't want this to turn into a legal battle." Yoshio's eyes darkened. "The Suoh family doesn't need another scandal on behalf of their illegitimate child."

Again, Kyoya looked back at Tamaki, who remained perfectly silent and still as he returned the gaze. He looked not unlike a kicked dog, woeful and apologetic as if it wasn't Kyoya's fault for abandoning his family in the first place. As if Tamaki hadn't pulled him from a hellish life and into a huge, beautiful house to do as he pleased. He thought of the comfortable king bed that he was gifted, and the freedom that he had. How nice it was to wake up to morning air with the prospect of seeing people that didn't expect him to be everything his family wanted him to be.

Kyoya's stomach ached. He regarded his father with defiant eyes. "I'm staying here." He could hear Tamaki's sharp inhalation above the sound of his father's disappointed sigh, not so much due to volume as to his expectance of the blond's reaction.

Yoshio's eyes were mirthless, his mouth drawn into a tight line. "You're a disgrace to the Ootori family. You always have been."

Kyoya looked away. "Just leave us alone. That's all I ask."

"I don't think so," Yoshio said. "Mister Suoh will want his son back. After this tirade, I sincerely doubt he'll want to keep him around for long, but that is his business, not mine."

Angered, Kyoya took a step toward Yoshio. "You can't take him. He is a legal adult who can do what he wants to do."

As Yoshio began to retort, the front door opened and caught his attention.

Hikaru and Kaoru, with four strangers trailing closely behind them, looked around the room as if they'd seen this a million times before—not surprised, not afraid. The way the twins looked now, deadly serious with their lips curled, was not something that Kyoya was used to seeing.

"Leave now," Hikaru started, "And we won't call the police," Kaoru finished, holding a stare with the patriarch of the Ootori family as though he didn't feel an ounce of fear.

Yoshio looked back at Kyoya but said nothing to him. Instead, he gestured for his men to exit and followed them out, leaving the Hitachiins and their new guests behind in the rubble he had created.

"I'll pay to fix that," Tamaki said, not looking at them. "I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it," the twins said as one.

Kyoya looked from the twins to the people behind them: a tall, thin man holding a small boy in one arm and a girl's hand with his free one, and another, shorter man on the girl's other side.

It didn't take him long to figure out what was going on. Just looking at them, from their dingy clothes to their rumpled hair, made something in his brain click. "So we aren't the first runaways you've ever had, I take it?"

"Or the last," Kaoru said with a smile, stepping aside to introduce the group. "We picked these guys up downtown. They've been hopping trains all over Japan looking for shelter from mob brutality."

"It's a sad story," Hikaru remarked, rubbing the girl's shoulder soothingly.

The girl, a pretty brunette with tired eyes, smiled at him. "We're very thankful for your help," she said.

At the sound of her voice, Tamaki raised his eyes to look at her. Kyoya felt the way the gaze they shared erased everyone else in the room in the space of a single heartbeat, and that was when he realized that this had to be the girl from Kyoto. This was Haruhi.

"Tamaki?" she finally dared to ask.

He joined Kyoya's side, but the latter understood that it was not to pay any heed to him, but merely to get closer to her. A buoy that happened to be on the way to the rescue ladder.

"Haruhi," Tamaki said, his voice a million miles away. "You're alive."


	5. Five

When Haruhi and Tamaki collided, it was obvious that the rest of the room meant nothing. It might as well have been blank space compared to the ferocity with which they gripped each other. Tamaki rocked Haruhi's frail body from side to side for so long that Kyoya almost forgot what he himself was doing there, standing there like an idiot while the man who practically saved his life clutched onto this girl like she was his whole world.

When he felt that it had gone on long enough, he deigned it an appropriate time to break the bad news. "Tamaki. My father is going to contact Yuzuru and persuade him to come looking for you."

Haruhi pulled back and regarded Tamaki with an irritated expression. "You're kidding. After all this time, you're still getting people into trouble with your thoughtless actions?"

"I—No!" He floundered for a few seconds before he thought of an escape. "Kyoya's part of the mob family, too!"

Kyoya, for his part, deadpanned, "No, I'm really not."

Haruhi shot Tamaki a glare. "My father and I are definitely staying in the room furthest from yours. I don't want you to come bothering us tonight."

"Haruhi…" Tamaki frowned, but the girl crossed her arms, making her point known.

Everyone simmered in the silence for a minute before Kaoru finally broke it. "So, uh…dinner?"

/

Dinner was ordered rather than served.

While the repairman was busy replacing the window, Haruhi Fujioka was formally introducing herself and her father Ryoji, as well as her traveling companions, the tall, silent Takashi and the short, adorable Mitsukuni, whom Kyoya learned was much older than he looked—a year older than Kyoya himself, in fact.

"My father and I met them in Osaka," Haruhi was saying, gesturing to the other young travelers, whom she referred to by their nicknames, Mori and Honey. Kyoya didn't remember where the story had begun. It was possible that he hadn't been listening. "When they said they were heading to shelter, we asked to tag along. It was lucky we found them when we did, honestly."

The atmosphere at the table, which had been icy to begin with, was beginning to thaw. Something about Haruhi's effortless charm made everyone feel more relaxed. All except Kyoya, who wasn't sure what to think at all.

While the rest of them continued to share stories, he was caught in a web of thoughts about the evening's events and what his life had become in such a short time. He was only drawn back to the present again by the sound of Tamaki's laugh, bright and carefree against all odds.

Kyoya watched as Haruhi, the cause of such laughter, smiled. "I'm sorry for getting mad earlier, Tamaki. It's just that things have been tough. I guess I let life get to me."

Tamaki looked at her in a way that made Kyoya feel he ought to turn his eyes away. "It's perfectly okay," he told her. "You had good reason."

The next bite that Kyoya took was somehow not as appetizing as the ones before.

Haruhi reached across the table to touch Tamaki's hand. "I missed you so much," she said wistfully.

"I missed you more than anything I've ever missed before."

Kyoya quietly excused himself to his bedroom, leaving his food half-finished on the table.

/

Sunday he woke up at seven again. It was particularly rough this time since he hadn't gotten to sleep until three, being preoccupied with the local news and a few other unmentionable things. Unsurprisingly, the news remained ugly. "Ootori son still missing." His father only cared about the way his business looked to the public, after all.

He stood, stretched, and retrieved his new, clean clothes (courtesy of the twins) from the top drawer of the dresser beneath the TV. Might as well look presentable for newer guests, not that it mattered.

While he brushed his teeth and wasted time examining the dark circles under his eyes, music began playing from a room up the hall. It wasn't the usual radio hits that Tamaki let play in the mornings, low on his laptop, but a classical piece playing out of something that sounded remarkably nicer. A stereo, Kyoya guessed.

A foray moments later proved him correct—it was a stereo in one of the back bedrooms, which at the moment was curiously empty yet had the door left open. The bed had been slept in. Faintly, the sound of water could be heard past the violin. Since he supposed Haruhi didn't shower with her father, he concluded that this was either Honey or Mori's room. Or both. He wasn't sure if they showered together or not.

He didn't have much time to think about it before he was tapped on the shoulder from behind.

"Excuse me," Haruhi said, eyeing him dubiously. "Kyoya, right?"

She was wearing Tamaki's blue button-down. Kyoya managed to contain his frown. "Yes, that's right. Sorry, am I in your way?"

"I was just bringing my father a towel. He forgot to grab one from the linen closet before he got in." She smiled at him, and he had to admit she was a beautiful young woman, especially when she was freshly-showered and had dark, dripping hair that made her brown eyes look brighter by comparison. "I just took mine down to the dryer. Hikaru said he was putting things in there anyway, so I might as well grab a new one."

"Have you been up long?" Kyoya asked, stepping aside from the doorway.

"About an hour," Haruhi answered. She disappeared for a moment to deposit the towel, then came out, shutting the door behind her. "I'm naturally a very early riser."

Kyoya only hummed. There wasn't much he was interested in discussing without breakfast.

They headed downstairs together, finding Tamaki in the kitchen as usual, with Kaoru at the dining table eating a plate of peppery-looking fried eggs and Hikaru barely visible from where he stood in the laundry room loading clothes. When Kaoru looked up, he appeared to be pleased—with their arrival or with the eggs, he wasn't sure.

"Good morning, guys!" he said, lifting a finger at them in a lazier version of a wave.

"Good morning, Kaoru," Haruhi replied. While Kyoya pulled a seat to sit down, Haruhi went into the kitchen. She put a hand on Tamaki's back, raised herself onto her toes, and kissed him gently on the cheek.

"These eggs look surprisingly good, Tamaki," Kyoya said, examining Kaoru's half-finished plate with feigned interest.

"Thanks!" Tamaki said, turning around and gracing him with a broad grin. "Haruhi helped me make them! Isn't that amazing?"

"Amazing," Kyoya repeated without tone.

"She's a very good cook," Tamaki continued, facing the stove again. "Now?" he asked her, as an aside.

"No, wait a second, it's not ready yet." Haruhi pointed into the pan. "Hikaru wants his cooked through."

"Tamaki learning to cook is just about the funniest thing I've ever seen," Kaoru said with a snort, shortly before lifting his remaining egg to his mouth. "At least he didn't destroy the kitchen this time. The maid doesn't come in on weekends."

"I would have helped you clean," Haruhi said, taking the spatula from Tamaki's hand. He let her. "It's the least I can do."

"We make Tamaki clean up his own messes," Hikaru said, appearing just in time for his eggs to be served to him.

"He makes a lot of them," Kaoru added. "Somehow."

"The pancake one was on purpose," Tamaki whined. "I'm not _that_ messy!"

Hikaru wrinkled his nose. "What do you mean the pancake one was on purpose?"

"I'd like over easy, if you're still making them," Kyoya said, focusing on his phone. Sudoku. He wasn't actually playing it, but it made him look busy and he found that doing so stopped people from talking to him as much.

"Over easy!" Tamaki sing-songed. "Haruhi, I need your help!"

"Over medium, I meant," Kyoya said.

"You can make that by yourself," Haruhi said, patting Tamaki on the back. "The same thing Kaoru wanted." She left to go back upstairs.

Kyoya hummed to himself. Hikaru side-eyed him from where he sat in the chair to his right. "No sleep last night, huh?" he asked.

It took Kyoya a second to realize that he was being spoken to. "Oh, no, I'm afraid not. I had a lot to think about."

"I bet," Hikaru said. He looked at Kaoru, who looked back.

"There's been a lot going on," the latter said.

"It makes sense," Hikaru said.

Kyoya didn't even like teenagers when he was one. Their tones and shared glances were not at all subtle. "She is fantastic company thus far," he told them, making them both snicker.

"Really?" Tamaki asked cheerfully, swishing his hips as he cooked. "I was afraid you wouldn't like her!"

"Now why would you think that?" Kyoya asked, irritated at the twins' identical smirks in his direction.

"I dunno, Kyoya," Hikaru said.

"Maybe he thinks you'd be jealous," Kaoru said.

"Because she's so beautiful?" Tamaki asked, practically swooning. "She isn't interested in a relationship though, I'm afraid. So you're out of luck, my dear friend."

"Right," Kyoya said flatly. "Oh well, better luck next time."

The twins were laughing out loud now, but Tamaki was, as usual, oblivious. "What's funny?" he asked innocently.

"Your cooking," Kaoru said, throwing a wink to Kyoya that he didn't particularly appreciate.

Teenagers knew everything. He hated it.

"Tamaki?" Haruhi's voice arose from the bottom of the stairs. "You haven't burned down the kitchen yet, have you?"

Tamaki scooped his eggs out of the pan and offered them to her proudly. "I did no such thing, Haruhi."

Haruhi smiled. "You're so weird." She leaned over to kiss him on the mouth, but he had turned to give a thumbs-up to the table at the same time, resulting in the kiss winding on sloppily on his temple, instead. Haruhi rolled her eyes and set the plate on the table. "Here you go, Kyoya."

"Thanks," he said without looking at her.

Haruhi blew a puff of air from the side of her mouth. "Okay…"

The stairs creaked, drawing the attention of everyone at the table. "Who's that?" Tamaki asked. "Are they hungry?"

"It's Mori and my dad," Haruhi answered for him. "Dad likes his over medium too. Mori?"

Mori grunted and pointed at Ryoji.

"Make that two," Haruhi said.

"Two eggs?"

"Two orders of eggs."

Haruhi sat in the seat to Kyoya's left and regarded him with interest. "So hey, you're running too, huh?"

Kyoya nodded.

"How long?"

"About a month," he said. "And you have been for four years now, correct?"

"Wow. Yeah," Haruhi replied. "Did Tamaki tell you that?"

_Sort of._ "Yes."

"We were relocated so suddenly that we didn't realize moving again would get us followed all over Japan." Haruhi sighed. "It's scary when you can't go home."

"Unless it's scarier at home," Kyoya commented offhandedly.

Haruhi seemed to be considering this. "I guess I'm pretty lucky in a lot of ways."

"You don't have to do that," Kyoya told her.

"Do what?"

"Always look on the bright side. You don't have to use other people's circumstances as excuses for why you should be happier."

Haruhi thought for a second, then smiled. "You know, Kyoya, that's a good point. Thanks."

Kyoya forced himself to smile back. "You're welcome, Haruhi. Any time."


	6. Six

That day was longer than the others.

Honey was a chatterbox when he finally woke up at noon, Hikaru and Kaoru kept dogging him, and Tamaki and Haruhi were constantly together as if they were joined at the hip. He found solace with Mori out in the garden, only because Mori didn't particularly like to talk. Sometimes Kyoya found that silence was best.

The garden was remarkably beautiful, with tall topiaries along the fence and a healthy, sizable lawn. A few feet into the grass was a stone water fountain with a two-person bench at the base, neatly flanked by two potted sunflowers.

It was very peaceful until Honey flung the doors open and sped through the grass, arms in the air. Kyoya had a hand to his chest, but Mori was completely unfazed; he must have been used to it.

Not two seconds later, the twins and Tamaki appeared, bearing armfuls of dance mats. Where from, Kyoya couldn't say. Haruhi followed closely behind them with her father in tow, though he looked reluctant to be participating in whatever was happening.

Without a cue, Mori stood.

"What are they doing?" Kyoya asked.

"No idea," Mori answered. He joined Honey's side, and Kyoya mentally noted that, like the twins, they looked much more comfortable when they were together as a duo. Even if Mori did not express it as much, Kyoya could tell by the way his features relaxed. He wondered if he looked like that around Tamaki; he wondered if that was how the twins caught on.

"Kyoya!" Tamaki hollered across the lawn, waving his arm theatrically. "Come try this with us! Haruhi's gonna teach us how to do yoga!"

Kyoya wished he had a book to duck his head into to make a point that he didn't want to join. Instead, when he didn't rise immediately, Tamaki and Honey came bounding back over with matched levels of excitement, like yoga had been on their bucket list for years.

"Tamaki, I'd rather not," he said, trying his best to ignore the puppy eyes.

"It's not hard," Honey told him, smiling gleefully. Even up close he looked like a child, not like the twenty-one-year-old that he was. "Takashi and I did a little back in high school. He's better at it than I am, though."

"I'm not one for exercise," Kyoya told him. "I appreciate the invitation, though."

"Kyoya," Tamaki pouted, bending to meet him at eye-level. "Come on." Just when he was beginning to consider, Tamaki put his hands on Kyoya's waist and whispered in his ear, "I think you'd like it."

Kyoya bit in the inside part of his lip to calm the rush of anger that whipped through his body. Tamaki couldn't flirt his way into getting what he wanted. Not when Kyoya knew he'd run right back to Haruhi the moment he was out of sight.

"I'm not in the mood," he said curtly, turning his head to the side to check his phone.

Tamaki looked put off. "I mean, if you really don't want to…"

"I don't."

"I thought it would be fun."

"I'm sure it will be."

From his peripheral vision, he saw Honey and Tamaki share a concerned look. When they finally shrugged it off and let him be, Kyoya returned to the bedroom. He tried to tell himself it wasn't to escape, but he wasn't successful when it came to fooling himself.

Exhaustion hit him like a lead weight. He shrugged his shirt off and tossed it onto the bed, followed by his pants. Perhaps a nap would do him good. Or better yet, he thought, a shower.

Killing time was easier alone, if a lot less entertaining. By the time he even thought to un-quarantine himself it was dinner time, and he caught everyone at the bottom of the stairs mid-discussion.

" _None_ of you know how to cook? Anything?" Haruhi was asking, sounding equal parts incredulous and annoyed.

"Nuh-uh," Honey said. "Mori and I eat out a lot."

"We have a housekeeper to do that for us," the twins said, like it should have been obvious.

"Then what do you eat on weekends?" Haruhi asked, putting her hands on her hips.

Hikaru said "Takeaway" at the same time Kaoru said "Ramen, mostly."

Haruhi sighed.

"Well, Kyoya can cook," Tamaki offered, flashing a hopeful smile at him. Haruhi and the others turned to look at him.

"Ah…so I take it that means I'm helping make dinner?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"I want dango!" Honey exclaimed.

Mori chuckled and ruffled his hair. Kyoya found it charming, in a weird way. "We can't eat dango for dinner," he said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "But if you're patient, I can make sushi."

Haruhi's mouth made a little "o" at the same time the twins offered an emphatic "mmmm" sound.

"Sushi it is!" Tamaki declared. "If you guys need any help—"

"No," Haruhi and Kyoya said at the same time. They glanced at each other, then back at Tamaki.

Tamaki deflated a little bit. "I'm not _that_ bad of a cook, am I?"

"Sushi is a little advanced," Haruhi said. "Just let me and Kyoya take care of it, okay?"

"Fine," Tamaki said dramatically, "if that's how it is…"

"You act like you're being shunned," Haruhi told him with a longsuffering look.

"You get used to it," Kyoya said, perhaps more fondly than he'd meant to.

/

Sushi was a success, and, as it turned out, Haruhi actually was a very capable chef. She had never made sushi before but she'd caught on quickly.

Dinner was a lot more comfortable than it had been the evening before. No broken windows and no tension. Sometimes all you needed was a homemade meal, Kyoya supposed. Even if you weren't exactly home.

Hours later, when everyone had retired to their rooms for the night, he let himself out the back door and into the garden. He spent the better half of an hour contemplating where he might go from here, hovering particularly on the revelation that the world was so much brighter now that he got to control his place in it. He wasn't sure he knew what to do with himself, now that the future that had been written for him went up in smoke.

He was still sitting on the bench beside the fountain, wrapped up in his thoughts, when the door creaked open once again.

When Tamaki sat down beside him he wasn't surprised, but he still chose to say nothing. Within the minute, as he was wont to do, Tamaki did all the talking for him, anyway. "It's nice out, isn't it? I'm glad there's a breeze. It gets kind of hot around here otherwise." Kyoya hummed in agreement. A few seconds were allotted so they could listen to the windchimes tinkling, and then he began again. "What are you thinking about?"

"A lot of things."

"Like?"

Kyoya sighed.

"It's okay if you don't want to tell me," Tamaki said. When Kyoya looked at him, he was looking up at the stars. "You wanna know what I'm thinking?"

"Sure, Tamaki," Kyoya said gently. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that it might make sense for them to part ways soon. With Kyoya out of his father's business and so retroactively his life, there wasn't any good reason to stick around anymore.

"I'm thinking that I could stay here forever. I know I can't, but it's very nice here with you and the twins."

"It is," Kyoya agreed. "And Mori and Honey. And Haruhi." He added, trying not to look at him.

"They have to go soon," Tamaki told him, a frown curling his lips. This caught Kyoya off guard.

"Where?"

"They're trying to make it to Matsuyama. They hope it will be enough to finally be free, since off the mainland our families don't control everything."

"I hope they get there safely."

"That's nice of you, Kyoya. I know you don't like Haruhi very much."

Kyoya looked at him quizzically. Had the twins told him that? "I like her fine," he said. It was the truth.

"Oh, really?" Tamaki smiled at him. "That makes me happy. She is very lovable, isn't she?"

"Hard to pretend otherwise."

Tamaki laughed, and Kyoya tried not to get too attached to the sound. He couldn't afford to anymore.

After a lengthy silence, Tamaki's features changed. Obviously, he'd hit a roadblock in his thoughts, and the more he chewed his lip in an uncharacteristic display of worry, the more curious Kyoya got. He knew, of course, that if he let him parse his thoughts, he would tell him in due time. The reliability was rather nice.

When the moment of inner turmoil passed, Tamaki came through, as he always did. "Why didn't you go with your father?" He cornered him with a particularly serious stare, and Kyoya didn't even want to try to look away. It was strangely fascinating, seeing Tamaki like this. His eyes still glittered and his laugh lines still gave the impression of a bubbly young man, but genuine concern was still discernible in his features.

Kyoya sighed. "If I had, my life would have been ruined. My fate was sealed the minute I walked out the door with you in that sad shack my father calls a clinic, and I knew that. If I went back, I'd have to spend my whole life making up for what I did."

"Yeah," Tamaki said, offering him a small smile. "You wouldn't want that kind of life, would you?"

"I don't really want this kind of life, either." Kyoya said, watching with a stab of regret as Tamaki's smile fell. "That isn't your fault." _Well, it sort of is. Just nothing you could control._

"You don't have to stay here," Tamaki said, almost sadly.

"Where else would I go?"

The other seemed to be deliberating with himself, but after a moment decided on what to say. "Well…" He took a breath. "I haven't gotten through all the details, but I actually have a plan."

"You do?" Kyoya asked, intrigued. He couldn't take for granted that a plan of Tamaki's involved him.

Tamaki perked up at his enthusiasm. "I want to go to France. If I can make it back there, I can reunite with my mother. I haven't seen her in years." Just as Kyoya had begun to absorb this information, Tamaki spoke again, hitting him squarely with a question. "Do you want to come with me?"

"I…" Kyoya looked out into the garden at nothing in particular. "I wouldn't want to intrude on your newly rekindled romance," he said tonelessly.

Tamaki fiddled with his shirt sleeve for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice had changed somehow. "Haruhi isn't going."

The tension in Kyoya's body melted away and he hated himself for it. "I'm sorry to hear that," he lied.

"Will you come?"

Ignoring the question, Kyoya charged forward with, "Do you still love her?"

Tamaki kept his gaze trained on his face, but Kyoya refused to look him in the eye. "You'll come, won't you?" he persisted.

"Did you ever fall _out_ of love with her?"

"Would it matter if I hadn't?"

Silence; and then, "No."

Tamaki laughed once. "I can tell you're lying."

Empty of the panic he imagined that he should have been feeling, Kyoya shrugged one shoulder. "Lying gets you where you need to go sometimes."

He expected that to be the end of it. Tamaki would go inside and pretend this conversation never happened, and Kyoya would bide his time until Tamaki fled to France and left his life for good. What he received instead was a teasing declaration. "I am appalled at your line of thinking, Kyoya! Honesty is the best policy, you know!"

"Everybody has secrets," Kyoya retaliated, fighting not to roll his eyes.

"What are yours?" Tamaki asked, poking him in the shoulder.

"I was always afraid of my father rejecting me."

Again, the cheer simply faded away from Tamaki's face. "Oh, I…"

"That's not my biggest secret," Kyoya continued, finally turning to look at the other. He gave a long sigh, then said, "I'm thankful you saved me from that wretched business. Without you I might have stayed there, hating everything forever. I'm glad I got to stay here with you."

"Yeah?" Tamaki asked, looking at him with raw, honest merriment. Before Kyoya could think better of it, he leaned closer so that their shoulders touched. "You sure that's your biggest secret?" the other continued, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Not anymore, idiot," Kyoya said fondly. He allowed himself a smile.

"There's not _one_ more thing?" Tamaki asked, giving him a doe-eyed look as though he could win him over any more than he already had.

"I don't consider the last thing to be a secret," Kyoya admitted, his gaze flickering from Tamaki's eyes to his mouth, then back up again.

"In that case," Tamaki began, inching closer, "I have no secrets anymore, either."

Kyoya could feel the warmth of Tamaki's breath fan over his lips, but before that burning coil between them could unravel, just as their lips nearly touched, Kyoya heard the sound of a gun cocking behind his head.

He had never felt so torn apart.

The last thing he saw was a gloved hand covering Tamaki's mouth and jerking him to a standing position. After that, everything went black.


	7. Seven

When he opened his eyes, the world was beautiful and new. It was just before dawn and the sky was hazy and barely-lit. The dewy grass in which he lay had provided him with a weightless deep sleep, one that he might have enjoyed if he could remember how he had gotten there. That was the first thing to worry him; the second thing was the roiling pain in his head and stomach.

He couldn't tell if he was dizzy because he was nauseated or vice versa, though he supposed the specifics didn't matter when he found himself on his hands and knees, emptying his stomach into the grass seconds after the pain registered. It took immense effort for him to struggle to his feet. He fought his way through the Hitachiin backyard, open palms held in front of him, helping him map his way back to the door. Even with the details being hazy, he knew that Tamaki was in trouble and that meant he had to act fast.

He jiggled the doorknob, only to find that the door was locked. "Of course," he muttered. It was early and no one would be awake at this hour. He slumped against the door and pressed the pads of his fingers into his forehead. _Think, dammit. What happened?_

The dizziness, the nausea—all signs pointed to chloroform. He considered this. Yoshio never left a chemical trail, so it clicked immediately that Yuzuru was likely the guilty party. It made the most sense, anyway: he could have easily sent his men out into the night, hell-bent on recapturing a son gone rogue.

Kyoya looked up at the pink-gray sky and drew a shaky breath. It was his fault they had been outside in the open the way they'd been last night. He knew they were in danger, yet he allowed them to be vulnerable for just a moment too long. _Stupid._

When his afflictions passed to a minor enough stage that he could stand and see clearly without feeling ill, he was on the move. One phone call to the nearest cab company later he was not only fully lucid but dealing with a stroke of adrenaline like a match had been struck somewhere deep within him. When the taxi pulled up to the Hitachiin manor in as timely a manner as promised, he was barely inside before he gave the direction. "Ouran Academy, please."

"You in a hurry?" the driver asked. Kyoya caught his eyes in the rearview mirror and was relieved to see a stranger looking back at him, as opposed to someone who might have known him through his dad.

"Late for a meeting," he lied while he fastened his seatbelt. "It's very important, so I insist you drive quickly."

/

The halls of Ouran Academy still felt familiar to him, despite his two-year absence from their presence. It was early enough in the morning that they were void of students and staff, leaving Kyoya alone with only his thoughts and the incessant clicking of his shoes on the tiled floor, which echoed all the way up to the tops of the vaulted ceilings.

At the back of the school's first story, just before he reached the exit leading into the garden, he turned the corner and approached the door to Yuzuru Suoh's office, solitary and imposing in its own little corridor. His name was printed on a gold placard, mounted to the door just below the little glass window that offered the barest view inside.

Kyoya prepared himself for anything, be it violence or professional phone calls. He knocked once, twice, three times, and waited patiently in complete silence.

When the door opened, Yuzuru regarded him with misty eyes, something that was not among the reactions he had been expecting. Still, he remained cordial in his greeting, as though nothing were wrong.

"Mister Suoh," he offered pleasantly.

Yuzuru stepped aside and allowed him into his office before quietly shutting the door behind them and taking his seat behind his desk.

"We both know why I am here," Kyoya said, keeping his tone even, his hands folded properly in his lap.

"You want to see my son," Yuzuru said. It wasn't a question. "I'm afraid he isn't here."

"Where might I find him?"

Yuzuru looked down at his own hands and studied his palms with a sudden rapturous interest. Before he looked back up he had to take a long breath. "Truthfully, I'm not sure."

"Nothing about the situation necessitated the violence you used," Kyoya said, trying hard not to sound accusatory but failing. "He hadn't done anything wrong."

"You see, it was your father," Yuzuru said slowly, gauging the younger man's reaction. "He informed me—erroneously, I'm afraid—that you had masterminded my son's kidnapping. By force, that is. So, naturally I saw you as a threat, my dear boy. It was an error of judgement on my part, as well as a miscommunication on your father's."

"That was no miscommunication," Kyoya said. "I'm sure he meant to make it sound as though I was to blame for all of this."

Yuzuru looked at him with sad, tired eyes and held up a neatly-folded piece of paper, inside of which was a note inked in delicate cursive. "Tamaki told me everything. What my, ah, _private_ affairs meant for his life, and what Yoshio's meant for yours. It's my fault for involving him in the first place. I was wrong to do so."

"Why don't you go looking for him?" Kyoya asked, keeping his gaze trained on the letter.

"I've done enough damage to his life already. I'm no longer going to concern myself with his decisions, as I'd rather he make them on his own from now on." For a fraction of a second, Kyoya made the mistake of looking defeated, and Yuzuru's stoic façade crumbled. He folded the note back into a neat little square and slid it across the desk. "The letter did not say where he went, but I would be willing to bet he is heading for his mother's home in Paris."

Surprised, Kyoya took the letter and looked up at the man with brows raised. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that…should you want to look for him, I'd be entirely willing to fund your flight to France."

After a couple attempts to speak failed him, Kyoya eventually settled on a hushed, "Thank you, sir."

"I only ask one thing of you in return."

"Of course, Mister Suoh."

"Tell him I'm sorry, and that I am proud of him for the man he has become."

/

He arrived back at the twins' house with a sizable check weighing heavy in his pocket. When he knocked on the front door, it flew open, revealing a disheveled Kaoru still in pajama pants and slippers, his hair a mess. Some distance behind him, the remaining house guests had gathered into a clump and were mumbling amongst themselves.

"Kyoya!" Hikaru called from the group, leading all eyes to the man.

"Where is Tamaki?" Kaoru asked, wrapping his fingers around Kyoya's arm in a panic. "When Hikaru and I realized that you guys weren't here, we—"

"We were worried sick, idiot!" Hikaru said, no hint of malice or anger in his tone; on the contrary, his eyes were wrought with worry and he looked paler than usual.

"Tamaki is fine," Kyoya told them. He could see the relief spread through the entire group. "It's over. Everything has been dealt with and…" he hesitated to say "fixed," but Haruhi took the weight off his tongue.

"And life is back to normal?" She looked happier for him than he could even be for himself. "That's all any of us could hope for, isn't it?" She looked from her father to Honey and Mori, then back to him. "Where is he, then?"

"Paris, France."

" _Paris?_ " she repeated, taken aback. "He must have gone to find his mom."

"I'm going to find him" Kyoya told her. "Whether or not he wants to come back is his decision, but there is a lot left to tell him…from all of us."

The twins smiled at him. Slowly, Haruhi approached him, lifted his hands in hers, and offered a smile of her own. "I wish you the best of luck, Kyoya."

"Thank you, Haruhi. The way Tamaki loves you so dearly, I know you must be a very caring, trustworthy person. I am sad to leave without knowing you better, and I'm sorry for the way I acted before."

"It's okay. I know why you were the way you were toward me."

Kyoya blinked a couple times. He looked at the twins, who shrugged, then regarded Haruhi with unmasked confusion. "Pardon me?"

Haruhi's charming smile melted into a knowing smirk, complete with pointedly-raised eyebrows. "Tamaki has a funny way of getting through to you in ways you never thought were possible. He might be a spaz, but he loves with his whole heart and nothing less."

"I…" Kyoya cleared his throat, only to be effectively silenced when Haruhi winked at him.

"But you knew that."

He was at a loss for words until the twins approached him from behind, each of them laying a hand on his shoulder. "You should hurry," Hikaru said.

"There's a flight heading that way in two hours," Kaoru said.

"They're right," Haruhi said with a nod. "I hope we meet again someday."

"I hope the very same," he told her before turning to face the twins. "Thank you for all your kindness."

"Get out of here, stupid," Hikaru said with a grin.

Kaoru laughed, spun him around by the shoulders, and shoved him toward the door. "You don't wanna be late for boarding!"

Kyoya looked back over his shoulder and waved at them. "I'll give him everyone's regards," he promised.

"And tell him he's an idiot," Kaoru said.

"For us," Hikaru added, leaning on his brother's side.

"Of course," Kyoya replied, just before he took the first steps out of his old life and into the newer, freer version of it that he'd never imagined he could have. Just a flight across the water laid Paris in waiting, and somewhere in that city he would find the man who had given it all to him.


	8. Eight

When he had first arrived in Paris, the last dredges of daylight were just beginning to fade. The city was still alive and buzzing with communication, but he was able to navigate to the nearest hostel without pushing through a crowd, which made the experience easier than it was currently—the morning after the first splendid sleep he'd had in a month.

The café he currently occupied was noisy, comforting in the same way the ocean was; he might have been surrounded by life, but he hardly noticed since none of it was invading his space. The voices and clicking glasses were simply white noise to him now.

With the last of the cash in his wallet, he bought a cappuccino, something he downed with ferocity so that, for most of his visit, he sat with an empty cup in hand, staring through the window at no one fixed location. He wasn't sure what he was expecting to see, or why he was still sitting there. Something in him screamed to _go, go, go already_ , but something else held him back.

He wasn't sure how long he sat at the table in some bizarre, self-inflicted solitary confinement, but eventually he thought of the bed at the Hitachiin manor, unused without good reason. A fear of comfort, maybe. Or worse, a fear of overstaying his welcome.

Maybe Tamaki had left without him for a reason.

Kyoya sighed and absently twisted his cup between his fingers.

It wasn't long past noon when he forced himself to stand and withdraw his phone, patiently awaiting directions to the abode of one Miss Anne-Sophie to load. He had come this far already, and the worst Tamaki could do would be to turn him away.

France was beautiful, he told himself. He could stay with or without Tamaki. All of this was sourly hollow in his head, but his legs were already moving before he could think better (or worse) about it.

Outside, it was almost hellishly sunny, something he grudgingly endured at best and vehemently loathed at worst. People brushed by him in every direction, acting as a large, teeming mass that seemed to exist solely for the purpose of slowing him down.

When he did finally make it as far north as he needed to be, to the place where the houses began to look more and more like fairytale cottages, he paused to reassemble himself. The path ahead was a long, winding dirt road, as quaintly country-like as France could stand to be. The trees were rustling gently on either side of him, and he could hear the sunbeams shout down at the earth aggressively.

At the peak of the day he saw it, a beautiful house with a cobbled walkway out front, and a clothesline fashioned out of poles and wire some feet away from the front window, upon which billowed blindingly white sheets.

It was all perfectly scenic and picturesque, yet he prepared himself for better. For the beauty and kindness of Anne-Sophie that he'd heard so much about—that he had seen in person in the form of her glowing, jubilant son.

He approached the door and took a breath, but the moment his knuckles ghosted over the pale wood, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Somewhat thankful for the excuse to stall, he pulled it out and was surprised to see the name Tamaki, tiny and neatly-typed, across the screen. For a second he forgot how to breathe, but he reminded himself that this is what he had come for.

He brought the phone up to his ear. He did not say hello.

"Kyoya?" Tamaki's voice crackled to life, sounding more than a little worried.

"Yes, it's me," Kyoya replied.

"Good!" The worry turned off like a light switch. "I know you're probably freaking out, but I can explain."

"Why would I be freaking out?" he teased, putting his back to the door and sinking down to sit on the porch.

"You ass," Tamaki said back, remarkably happier than Kyoya was used to hearing, if that were even possible. "Guess what, though? I'm safe."

"I know."

"So you talked to my dad, huh?"

"What makes you so sure I didn't just guess?" Kyoya asked.

"Because I know that the first place you'd go would be to my father." When Tamaki said this, it was earnest and thankful. Kyoya wasn't quite sure how to respond. Luckily for him, though, Tamaki saw fit to continue his explanation. "I snuck out through my bedroom window. It was all very exciting." He sighed, almost wistfully. "But, ah, I called because I wanted to ask you something."

"Yes, Tamaki?"

"I know it's kind of far away and it's an expensive trip, but… I'm in Paris with my mother, like I told you I'd planned to do. I know the twins would help you buy a ticket if you wanted, since I'm sure your card doesn't work anymore." At that, Kyoya snorted, but he allowed the other to continue. He looked down at the brick and began absently fiddling with a fallen leaf. "I was wondering…would you still like to come with me?" There was a brief silence, then a quick, "I mean, Paris is a gorgeous city."

Kyoya smiled. "I know what you mean."

"Have you ever been—" Tamaki stopped short.

"Been to Paris? As a matter of fact, I—" Kyoya happened to look up to see, just across the yard, Tamaki standing there, phone still in hand, with a brown paper bag balanced on one hip, looking back at him with about as much shock as Kyoya felt at the sight of him.

"You're here," Tamaki breathed into the phone.

"I am," Kyoya replied, before snapping his phone closed and rising to his feet.

His plan had been to wait for Tamaki to put the bag down inside, but the latter had different ideas. He all but tossed the bag onto the ground, letting a few apples scatter across the lawn, and raced over to catch Kyoya in a hug that nearly toppled him over.

For an achingly long moment he couldn't breathe, but when Tamaki eased up to look at him, eyes starry and fearfully close to tears, Kyoya felt nothing but a deep-seated satisfaction, like taking a deep breath after you've been holding it.

"It's not like I had died," he said, one corner of his mouth quirking upward despite himself.

"I know!" Tamaki howled, crushing the other's ribs in a hug again. "But I can't believe you're here!"

He found enough inner strength to loop his arms around Tamaki's waist. "Out of all the places in the world you could go, this would be the first I'd think of."

Tamaki went pink up to his ears and regarded him with narrowed eyes. "No way. I haven't been back home in ages! You don't think anyone will find me here, do you?"

Kyoya waded through the various options he had for a proper response, eventually to settle with the decision to humor him. "Well, most people don't know you as well as I do, so I suppose overall this wasn't an awful choice."

Tamaki's mouth made a wavy line that Kyoya had a hard time reading. When he raised a brow at him, the other man was suddenly closer than he had been before, and all at once Kyoya tasted what true freedom was like.

"Kyoya?" Tamaki said lightly, cocking his head to the side a fraction. The bravado that he usually wore had been wiped away with the threat of facing what he had begun to say, and this did not bode well for Kyoya's pulse.

"What is it?" he pressed, watching the other man laugh, more out of nerves than out of humor.

"This is a lot harder to do than the movies made it look."

"Trust me, Tamaki, our lives are not anything like the movies," Kyoya said, gingerly bringing their foreheads together. This alone seemed to quell the other man's rising nerves, at least long enough for him to relax into him.

"I love you," he said at length, no holds barred and nothing frilly—just that, marked by him smiling boyishly with his hands all threaded up in the back of Kyoya's hair.

Kyoya felt as though the world could explode at any moment, and he would die happy. "I love you too, idiot."

Tamaki lifted Kyoya's glasses off the bridge of his nose and examined him for a moment. Though Tamaki was just a blur now, Kyoya would have been hard pressed not to realize that the other was grinning. At least, he had been until he kissed him, making Kyoya catch his weight with his foot behind him as Tamaki practically bowled him over with the intensity.

When they pulled apart, Tamaki was laughing and Kyoya was rubbing his bottom lip as if trying to process whether that had actually happened. He retrieved his glasses and readjusted himself in time for Tamaki to grab his hand and yank him toward the front door.

"You'll love my mom," he said animatedly, knocking on the wood with more enthusiasm than was probably necessary to alert Anne-Sophie to their presence. "She's the kindest woman you'll ever meet."

Kyoya smiled. "I don't doubt it."

They waited until the door opened, revealing a woman very close to her son in terms of both looks and height. When she saw Kyoya, her face changed like she was going to cry; he saw where Tamaki got his emotional side.

"Oh, René, my love," she said, clutching Tamaki to her chest in an emphatic embrace. "This is him, isn't it? This is Kyoya! He's beautiful."

Kyoya had been called many things, but beautiful was not usually among them.

"I told her about you," Tamaki admitted unnecessarily, rubbing the back of his neck.

"What about me, exactly?" Kyoya asked, allowing himself to be engulfed in Anne-Sophie's hug but still sparing a concerned glance over her shoulder at Tamaki, who smiled apologetically.

"Everything?" he answered, giving the word an inflection like it was a question.

" _Everything_ ," Anne-Sophie confirmed, stepping back and looking at him with her hands still squarely on his shoulders. When she winked, Kyoya developed a sudden fluttery feeling in his stomach thinking about just what "everything" might have entailed.

"So introductions are superfluous, I suppose," he said. He cleared his throat and tried to look anywhere but at her face. As if sensing this, she gripped his cheeks in her hands and smiled dazzlingly brightly at him.

"Oh, no, sweetheart! I want to hear it all."

Kyoya smiled awkwardly, first at her, then at Tamaki when the woman finally released his face and gestured inside. "You are welcome to stay with us for as long as you'd like."

"I wouldn't want to impose," he said, already melting into an agreement at the way Tamaki looked at him pleadingly. "So…I'll do anything I can to help."

He followed Anne-Sophie into the house with Tamaki all but draped on his shoulder, and the sight of the sizable foyer brought something to mind. "Tamaki," he said, looking around curiously as the man led him through the entryway and into the living area.

"Yes, Kyoya?"

"You've got a lot of phone calls to make today."

The man's eyes sparkled. "I guess now's as good a time as any to say hello to the twins."

"And Haruhi," Kyoya said with the barest hint of a nod. He handed Tamaki his phone, which he accepted. "And, if I'm not mistaken, Honey and Mori should still be there as well."

Tamaki set his jaw to the side thoughtfully, then slid the phone into his back pocket. Then, he reached down for Kyoya's hand and squeezed it. "I'll call them later. For now, how about breakfast?"

"That depends. What are we having?"

"Well, you know me," Tamaki said with a cheeky smile, "I'm partial to pancakes."


	9. Epilogue

It had been a year since Kyoya Ootori had shed the weight of his past, leaving his family and country behind for a new and better life in Paris with one Tamaki Suoh.

It had been only a year, but the past came back to find him in the least likely way.

The day had begun as normal, with Kyoya sitting at the little round dinner table beside the kitchen, sipping his coffee as his own personal greeting to the early morning. He scrolled through news headlines on his phone, a feat that was happening mostly out of idle boredom until he came across one that struck his interest.

_Yuuchio Ootori Takes Over Family Medical Business._

With interest in the state of the family affairs he'd left behind, he clicked the link and took another drink of his coffee.

As he was reading over the last bit of the article, Tamaki appeared, clad in a pair of baby blue pajama pants with messy hair and tired eyes. "Good morning," he greeted, punctuating it with a yawn that Kyoya found to be unfortunately contagious. He shuffled across the room and pressed a kiss to Kyoya's forehead before he leaned his chin on his shoulder. "Whatcha reading?"

"News," Kyoya said simply, tilting his phone upward so Tamaki could see.

"Oh… Don't worry, Kyoya. I'm sure nothing much will change."

"I'm not worried," Kyoya said, then, after a moment of consideration, added, "Actually, I had a different line of thought."

Instantly, Tamaki perked up. "Yeah?"

"My father and the family are in Paris unveiling the new business center they purchased for my brother."

"Yeah…" Tamaki repeated, voice becoming skeptical. "And?"

"I think we ought to pay them a visit."

Tamaki frowned. "Oh, ah—you mean, go to see your dad? _Together?_ " When Kyoya nodded, the blond forced a smile. "If you want to, Kyoya. I'd be happy to…well, I'll come with you."

Kyoya chuckled and leaned back so that Tamaki could kiss him on the lips this time. "I would appreciate the company," he said, and the other's smile became genuine.

"Anything for you, Kyoya."

/

When Yoshio caught sight of them after the unveiling ceremony, there was no surprise in his features. Similarly, his two brothers approached them without interest, busy talking to each other. His mother and sister, however, looked ecstatic, and he didn't have time to fend off a tight hug from each of them in unison, complete with shrill cries about love and loneliness and how much he was missed.

Yoshio looked at his middle son for a second in silence, taking in the relaxed clothes he wore. Finally, after enough deliberation, he nodded. "My son, I owe you an apology."

Kyoya's mother squeezed her husband's hand. Fuyumi stepped back to join her brothers.

"Is that so?" he asked, stealing a glance at Tamaki, who, despite his trepidation about coming, looked perfectly happy and comfortable. "I'm anxious to hear it."

"What I said to you when we last spoke to each other…" Yoshio pursed his lips.

"Honey," Misses Ootori said, smiling wanly at her son. "Your father loves you."

"You've come very far on your own," Yoshio said with a nod—his way of agreeing with her without having to say it aloud. "And, after all, standing up to me requires a kind of bravery I should have known you possessed." Hesitantly, he took a step forward and extended a hand to Kyoya, smiling at him. "I can't undo the sins of my past, but if you find it in your heart to forgive me, I'd be honored."

"That's something we'll have to discuss in a more private place," Kyoya said, with a measured, polite smile. "But for now, I am very interested in hearing how you all have been."

"That is fair," Yoshio admitted, letting his hand fall back to his side. "We have been faring well, in terms of family and business. Yuuichi is going to take over the professional side of things from now on, since he and his wife seemed very well-equipped at this stage of their lives."

"That's fantastic," Kyoya said, sounding genuine but feeling far from it.

"Other than that, nothing much has changed. For you, however, I'm sure a great many things have. I'm curious as to how your life is going."

"Fantastic," Kyoya answered, lifting his chin the slightest bit. "Tamaki and I work together at a florist up the road from his mother's house. His father helps us get along fine, but we rather enjoy the labor."

"Excellent. I see you two have formed a very splendid, if unexpected, friendship."

Tamaki looked over at Kyoya with a knowing look, and Kyoya, taking that as a cue, extended his hand, palm down, toward his father. "As a matter of fact," he began, smiling at his mother's loud gasp, "we're engaged to be married."

Yoshio looked taken aback, which is exactly the expression Kyoya had been hoping for. Trying not to revel in it too terribly much, he allowed his mother to examine the ring for a brief moment before retracting his hand.

"Congratulations!" Misses Ootori exclaimed, throwing her arms around Kyoya's shoulders, then moving over to hug Tamaki with an equal amount of enthusiasm. She cupped her hands around Tamaki's cheeks, something that made the man erupt with bubbly laughter.

"She's as touchy as my mother," he commented, watching with amusement as she pulled away and reached out to squeeze her husband's hand again.

"My goodness, son," Yoshio said, after a measured silence, "you are certainly full of surprises."

Tamaki wound an arm around Kyoya's waist and shrugged one shoulder. "You know, Mister Ootori, I've realized that about him, too. I find that it's a lot of the reason I fell in love with him."

Yoshio sighed and held his hand out to Tamaki, who shook it with enthusiasm. "I'm very sorry for the trouble I have caused you as well, Mister Suoh."

"For me it's all in the past," Tamaki said. "The important part is in the future, and we've got a long stretch of it ahead of us."

"That you do," Yoshio agreed. "And, if at all possible, I would like to be part of it."

"That means a lot, Father," Kyoya said. "We have a lot of making up to do, but I hope to see you at the wedding."

Yoshio looked between the two of them, then at his wife. With a sincerity Kyoya hadn't heard in a long time, his father said to him, "I wouldn't miss it for the world."


End file.
